wind out of Oklahoma this morning
smelled like blood and smoke
and the crows discussed their future
in the branches of their
Louisiana live oak
the limbs are strong and heavy
and its leaves are all aglow
and the branches brush the upper air
but the roots reach down
to where the bad people go

and what will i do with you
pink and blue
true gold
nine days old

nice new clothes on you
and an old cardboard produce box for a cradle
i mash some bananas
in a coffee cup
and i fed you there
at the kitchen table
crows outside complaining
about the finer points of local politics
strange wind all full of new smells
rust and fur and reception sticks

16 Comments

General Commentthis is a song about a single father with no idea how to be a father, pink and blue are common colors to see babies wearing,

I love the parts with the crows and the tree, it symbolizes how society completely overlooks people in situations like the narrator. the tree is very healthy judging by the lyrics "strong and heavy branches, leaves all aglow" which just further contrasts with the narrator and his situation, feeding his baby mashed bananas, and using an old produce box for a cradle.

General CommentOKC bombing interpretations feel a little forced to me, but there IS something very dark at the core of this song.

"cardboard produce box for a cradle" - mashed bananas in a coffee cup for an infant - "what will I do with you?" It all points to something awful, but it's conveyed sideways, in a lullaby.

I think the singer's wife - the baby's mother - died giving birth. The "nice new clothes" were probably a parting gift from the hospital, but the free formula samples didn't last very long, and he can't afford even basic baby furniture, and he doesn't know a damned thing about how to take care of a baby, and he's out of his mind with grief and sleep-deprivation - but also with love, for this tiny life that he's suddenly responsible for.

Darnielle is really good at this - hiding an enormous emotional payload in words and sounds that seem so simple - and I think this is one of his best.

General Commenti've been chewing on this song for the past week. i thought about how you wouldn't want to feed nine day old babies mashed bananas. so maybe the song is about just not knowing what to do with babies. then i thought about how maybe...the babies...are...monkies. baby monkies. to some zoos, that's as good as gold.

General CommentIt's about the Oklahoma city bombing. "Wind out of oklahoma smells like blood and smoke"

There was a lot of babies there, remember the picture of the dead baby from the daycare. I think this song is about a baby who lost its parent/parents and the new care taker doesnt know how to take care of a baby, so its feeding it mashed bananas and making it sleep in a produce box.

I think the parts about the crows is saying that people complain about stupid things and talk about the politics of a situation when they arent thinking about the real people involved such as this baby.

or maybe its about how the baby is so innocent and doesnt know anything about the situation, other then it lost its parent.

General Commenti like the idea of the oklahoma city bombing. i think everyone saw the photo of the firefighter carrying the dead baby out of the wreckage..
maybe it's a sort of what-if situation, you know? what if you had rushed in beforehand and taken the baby out. the roots are death and the crows are society in the actual situation, but he's wishing that he'd been able to make a difference.
also, i love babies.

@elodie Amusingly, at a benefit show to raise money to try to stop Amendment 1 in NC, JD said that the "bananas to a nine-day-old baby" was a line written off the cuff by a much younger JD who really knew nothing about babies, and didn't stop to think about the fact that a nine-day-old human baby would not be anywhere near eating solid food. He said that current day Dad JD looks back on that line and shakes his head. Everyone had a good chuckle, and then he played it.

General CommentI think a poetic features is worth further notice here. There's a kind of multistable ambiguity in the crow lines that I think shows real genius in songwriting. Here in the second verse:

"crows outside complaining
about the finer points of local politics"

we have an observation about the background environment from the narrator. But, is his observation about crows or (say) old men? Are crows making noises back and forth that he imagines to be a discussion of local politics? Or are their people out there talking about local politics, and he imagines them to be crows? Of course either of these is possible, and I think the song is made richer for drawing your ear to the ambiguity in the stream of consciousness description.